Groove Back

Finally focusing on the paper like I wanna, after a mixed week. Secret: 10 hours sleep, hours of focus at a time, kickass outline.

Peace and quiet

I'be been letting myself go in the evenings, but otherwise staying focused I'm able to mix a central project and misc email more effectively now that I've gotten into the swing of things, focusing in 20 min blocks rather than 2 hours.

Tides of March

I'm back, but it took longer than expected.

I'm on Protrero Hill, which is where I should be in the afternoon of the perfect day that I discovered back in January. It's 6pm. I've been working with focus and energy since 11, a late start but also an easy one. I felt my blood pumping about work all day, a Presidian joined me for part of the day, and all it took was a short-notice text message. I'm where I want to be.

Last week was different. After the strain in Feb, which really went until mid-March, I felt shut down and disconnected. I couldn't focus, when I worked I didn't feel the rush and excitement that I'm feeling now. I read comics and played video games and excessively watched Hulu.

I'm not certain what broke me out, I think it was ecsatic dance. I went to the east bay with Jen and went to a spiritual dance thing, to my surprise I felt very sensitive to the emotional state of the people there. It wound up being overwhelming, but since then I feel like I've been able to connect fully with the people and work that I value most.

The lesson here is that I need to value and maintain that connection. Cramming too much into my schedule shuts it down, I switch to stress as a motivator and just react to my schedule. Once it's shut down it takes a while, and maybe something spiritual, to get me back in sync. Spiritual for me means communities and emotional expression, maybe other things as well.

Shocking!

Innundated with free time again I've been having trouble focusing. I sat down for unproductive twiddling today and wound up finishing a massive excel model for ops! Here's to working groups around the work I know I'll enjoy doing.

Walks in the rain

It's the day that we submitted the report to the DSM working group, and I'm getting an innundation of research on green business consulting. I love how many of my days are like this.

Refocus

Whew, I'm out of the frying pan, and with only a new job to juggle. I've spent a lot of time getting back in touch with my priorities. Now that I have he flexibility to make decisions in my schedule I can hopefully get it back to the sense of balance and flow that I was at in January. Trouble is, I don't think I have time for this job, school, and my community. I have to learn how to compress something, but what?

Unda pressure

Most of the way through february and it's been interesting. With less free time my stress level has gone up, and so has the amount of time that I spend procestinating. What would it take to stop this from happening? Should I just be letting the caffiene and adrenaline flow? Prpcrastination has been relationship focused, maybe finding ways to mix work and relationships when this happens.

Stress kicking in

I'm realizing that my February is almost entirely booked, and it's breaking me out of my nice relaxed cycle. I need to find a way to take things as they come and wait until March, until then I feel like I don't have much control. Maybe I just need to accept that too?

Meeting day

Cold is almost gone. Spent most of today in meetings, and wound up a little more stressed than in the past. Interesting. Maybe it's the feeling of committing to things/worrying about what I can commit to/feeling accountable? I should think about how to get energized by and balance meetings. 

Another full day of meetings tomorrow, so I'll get a chance to see.

Today

Leisurly blogs in the morning, some bizgov work, some reading, a lot of helping people with problem sets and writing an Ops post. Got a little distracted with chatting in the night but I'm mostly ok with that. Taking it easy while I heal,, but am aware that I need to calmly pick up some pace.

Sore throat

*cough* *cough* Still, I'm strumming right along. Despite a morning yesterday wasted reading Girl Genius (double-whammy of wasting time and burning the computer candle) I kept a sense of flow throughout the day, getting a bunch of stuff done, calmly gliding in and out of meetings and generally keeping a fast typing speed when composing things. I've been puting more reading notes up on Schooled Green, and I wonder if that's too much of a luxury.

Getting better

I'm feeling good. I'm sitting down to slug through email and other tasks more easily know that I know I'll let myself take a break, I'm looking forward to it more. I think I'm feeling out a direction.

Bringin' it back

I've started my 2nd semester of business school, and am getting focused internally once again. I want to really pay attention to the way that I restn and recouperate my energy level so that I can work efficiently, prioritize well and increase the amount that I'm unstressfully getting done. I'm going to start using this blog to chronicle what's going on, but quick-like.

Today:

Been getting better at going to bed and waking up, morning routine has me feeling more focused. I'm better able to turn down procrastination. Question of the day: how do I decide which email to ignore?